This is how you can play with scent at home: “I compare making perfume to brewing beer” | living

If you used to buy a simple scented candle or spray, now there are different design labels with their own lines in home fragrances. For example, perfume designer Som had his own presentation at Milan Design Week last summer. Moooi brand design now has so many “room fragrances” that you should be able to recognize the exotic scents of papaya or fern. And the art world is also beginning to pay more attention to the nose.

“I’ve noticed this development keenly in recent years,” says perfume designer Frank Blum, who recently published the book. Fragrance: Forgotten Sensation released. “In 2007 I graduated from the Rietveld Academy and at that time there was no interest whatsoever in scent. Now you see it coming back in many design academies. It is also becoming more important in the product design and development phase.”

“I sometimes compare that to brewing beer,” Bloom continues. “Thirty years ago, you couldn’t have imagined you could create your own brewery. That was a thing for big producers. But now there are so many opportunities for small businesses. You can now see the same thing happen with aroma. It’s becoming increasingly available to designers and interested parties.” the other.”

Making your own home fragrance is basically very simple. You can mix baby oil and alcohol with the essential oil you like, then pour this mixture into a sealable bottle and use wooden sticks to diffuse the scent. However, the perfect scent isn’t just found or created. Hints of coffee or wood that you might like might not be at all delicious to someone else.

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“Smell has a lot to do with memories and special associations,” says aromatherapist Harmen Rijpkema. “Lavender, for example, is a common scent that a lot of people recognize and love. But if your grandmother had lavender sachets at home and you always had to sit quietly on the couch there, you might have more negative associations with it. You can stir up emotions with the scent.”

Rijpkema mentions past experiences in Japan, where employees made far fewer mistakes if there were a few lemons hanging around the desk. It might also be a great idea for home workers. “You can switch it up over the course of an entire day,” adds Rijpkema. “The lemon at the beginning of the day is nice and fresh and invigorating. Later on you can make the atmosphere more relaxing with lavender or a little rose. But you can also totally create a scent. You have to find out for yourself what works best.”

Your interior can be a guide, Blum says. He takes a house with a lot of wooden furniture and brown colors as an example. “You can enhance this atmosphere with the scent of wood,” says the perfumer. “Or you add some smoke for a fireplace-like feel. But you can also choose something completely different for an unexpected effect. That’s great too, to make it an experiment.”

In the run-up to Christmas, Bloem still has a strong disadvantage. “Don’t light a scented candle during dinner. You taste food partly through your nose, and it’s often not the substances in scented candles that make our food good. Maybe you could try it. I can imagine a chocolate dessert, for example, paired with lavender scent or a Pepper. But you’ll have to orchestrate that well.”

“I think it feels so good to smell my house again when I come back from vacation,” says Bloom. “But you get used to it pretty quickly. You can use the same idea when you have guests over. You can pleasantly surprise people if you smell good upon entering. After a drink, blow out the scented candle completely. Then the food pops and you really get a new sensation.”